Almost
by Cheshire Grin
Summary: A wander through the Masaki Shine woods at night. What might she remember...?


ALMOST  
  
A Tenchi in Tokyo Fanfic  
By Cheshire Grin  
wheresmyspoons@yahoo.com  
  
Based on and after the Tenchi in Tokyo Series.  
  
Authors Notes: This is my first fic. Any polite comments would be appreciated.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to anything Tenchi. More people than I can mention do. I make no money from this. I only own my imagination.  
  
Prologue:  
  
Yugi sat quietly on top of the Masaki Shine. Her thoughts were an almost incoherrent jumble,   
each crying for dominance yet all pointing ultimately in the same direction. It was night time   
and a gentle darkness surrounded her, seemingly ageless trees whispering with a cool breeze   
and reminding her of their existance.  
  
Despite the darkness, Yugi felt comfortable. Even the smallest of sounds and touches assured her   
that she was not confined. Perhaps not confined now but still alone she thought, her mood   
darkening.   
  
Ever since she could remember, she had been alone.   
  
Oh, sure she had her playthings. Creatures she had created to fulfil anything she wished, yet all fundamentally incapable of fulfilling the one thing she wanted desperately. True companionship.  
  
She guessed it was all she had ever really wanted. As a child she had developed awesome  
power, the abilities to alter, create and destroy as she wished. Yugi had worked  
hard to help people at first, helping anyone who asked, asking only an unspoken question.  
"Would you be my friend?"  
  
She had seen the fear in their eyes, seen their nervousness around her. Yugi had fiercely  
ignored it, some subconscious element in her believing that it would go away if she  
ignored it. She was just a little girl, not some hideous monster.  
  
She just wanted to please. And she had pleased, had momentarily been thilled by the looks   
in the eyes of others as she gave them what they had asked for. But always that thrill had  
slowly died away as they bowed and thanked her, their delight being suffused with their   
nervousness as they made excuses to leave.  
  
She had become more and more desperate as she grew older, yet all to no avail. Yugi had  
ultimately remained the same in the eyes of the world, the unspoken words "freak", "demon" and   
"frightning" flitting through her dreams.   
  
Yugi could not remember when she had developed the brilliant idea of creating her own friends.  
It had seemed such a good idea. If other creatures were scared of her she could create ones  
that trusted her, if others avoided her, she could create ones that would come to her when she  
needed.   
  
It had worked well enough at first and she had been relatively happy, enjoying the company of  
her creations. Friendship however is based on a very simple factor that despite it's simplicity  
can never be duplicated. Free will. Yugi had gradually realized that her 'friends' possesed   
no will other than her own, each a tiny fragment of her mind materialized before her as a toy,  
more a possesion than anything else.   
  
She also realized that her creations had grown from tiny, cute animals to gargantuan monstrosities, towering over the world below. Their size had gradually increased over the years without her really being aware of it. Perhaps it was some subconcious attempt to compensate for their fundamental inadequacies.  
  
The people of Jurai had not liked this and their fright and mistrust grew. Every now and again  
Yugi's pets caused them trouble, accidentally stepping on a building or eating some of the crops  
they had grown.   
  
The civilization that incidentally owed much of its advancement to this estranged little girl, united against her, sealed her inside a coffin-like satellite and cast her from their planet. She woke in a darkness that stripped her of all her defences and power, leaving her locked away without protection from her childish fears and needs.  
  
For hundreds of years, Yugi had remained trapped in the dark, tormented and betrayed, despair   
and anger eating away at her soul and an unimaginable sadness replacing the unending dark with  
a pool of tears.   
  
She supposed she had drowned in it.   
  
Yugi reaction to the world on which she landed and awakened was understandable. Maybe not   
entirely justified or condoned as it seemed, but understandable. Her overwhelming fear of the  
dark almost crippled her and she stayed hidden for a long time. As Yugi gradually emerged into a  
new world a newer fear assailed her. People.  
  
They might lock her away again or worse, although she could not really think of anything worse.  
But the fear and hatred was unshakable and the need for protection overshadowed everything else.   
This world was not as powerful as Jurai and it was within her power to control it and prevent it  
from hurting her. She would control this world and all it's people and thereby stop them from  
casting back into the abyss of nothingness that terrified her more than anything else.  
  
Snapping her eyes open, for a moment the memories leaving her, Yugi glanced around. The Masaki Shrine was peacefull in the pre-dawn darkness and the breeze had softened and grown cooler.  
Morning and a new day were not far away, she mused. Morning when she would reveal her intentions the Masaki family. It hurt to think about, and part of her was terrified but another part filled with relief and acceptance.  
  
Without knowing she did so, Yugi shook her head slightly and dismissed the thought from her mind.  
The memories returned and she closed her eyes once more.  
  
Tenchi Masaki seemed to represent and embody her fears and hatred. He did so without malice or  
even knowledge of her existence, yet that did not matter. He remained the one being on this small  
world who had a chance of imprisoning her again. On top of that he was Jurian and the   
unknowing protector and guardian of this planet. Tenchi was the legacy of those who had cast Yugi, begging and pleading into hell.   
  
Even in exile they still held the sword to her neck.   
  
Yugi hated him. Centuries of fear and desperation gave force to her instinctual hatred. And so,  
hidden in a layer of dimention beside that of Earth, the darkness carefully banished by the crystal-like fortress she had built (no-one else knew, but her fortress was actually constructed of solidified light), Yugi vowed to destroy him.  
It was strange how things worked out. The culmination of her carefully planned attack on Tenchi   
Masaki and his companions had resulted in a cataclysmic loss. All of Yugi's anger and fear was   
stripped away until only the numbing sad despair which spawned it all was left. Her defences   
crumbled until unthinkably, Tenchi stood before her holding the sword she had worked so hard to   
rid him of.   
  
Yugi's world shattered and in that moment she accepted completely that she WAS alone, would be   
alone for all eternity, never to be accepted or even tolerated. She had tried her hardest but   
had never stood a chance from the start. Even Sasami who had said she was Yugi's friend now stood against her.   
  
Yugi had not planned to try to become friends with anyone until she was sure she would   
be safe, but when she met Sasami, who reminded Yugi of herself before she was incarcerated all  
those centuries ago, the loneliness and desperate need had been too much.   
  
Now Sasami stood against her, aiding Tenchi in Yugi's destruction, and in the wake of that newest  
betrayal, the one person she had ever dared to call her friend had abandoned her, Yugi's   
despair completely consumed her. The one thought consuming her was her desperate prayer that   
Tenchi would kill her rather than cast her back into a cell of nothingness.  
  
Fate chose to have pity on her at that moment however and rather than imprison or kill Yugi,   
Tenchi Masaki had taken her completely by suprise.   
  
Dropping his weapon, Tenchi had dropped to his knees and embraced her, protected her, replacing   
the strength she had lost with his own.   
  
He had in effect become her friend.  
  
She had been skeptical at first, doubting him, doubting herself, unable to believe what had happened, that her worst enemy had protected her, helped her and even offered his home to her. But he stayed with her despite her misgivings, never leaving, remaining beside her for endless days as she cried her pain and fears into his shoulder until they had finally left.   
  
She had wanted Sasami to be her companion, had believed she was. Yet somehow Sasami had not been   
able to understand her. The young princess had never really known the pain and loneliness that  
had become the foundation of Yugi's life. Sasami had unwittingly deserted her, the eternal   
optimism and inability to understand suffering had presented an insurmountable barrier.  
  
She never would have believed that Tenchi would be the one to understand and accept her, he seemed stupid and nieve and a BOY.   
  
However, Yugi had gradually learned that he was much more like herself than she initially thought. The young Masaki knew well what it was like to feel trapped and helpless. Powerless to escape and isolated. Tenchi knew what not being accepted was like. The girls who always surrounded him viewed him as a prize to win rather than a friend. Tenchi understood all about being alone.  
  
To top it all off, the greatest irony was that despite all of this, despite her newfound friend and acceptance, Yugi was still alone.  
  
She sat atop the shrine and contemplated it. Dawn had come, the first dim rays of the sun lighting the forest. She could see the Masaki house in the distance beginning to come to life.   
  
She sighed, a sad smile flashing across her face. She would go back soon. Tell them all of her   
decision. Not the whole reason behind it all of course, but nevertheless her intentions would   
be made clear. She supposed she owed them that much.  
  
Yugi stood and floated to the ground. Slowly beginning the walk back to the house, she looked  
around at the world. A sudden flood of tears ran down her face and she fell to her knees, allowing herself to be weak for one last time.   
  
She had come to realise that she had fallen in love with Tenchi during the last few days. She supposed that was the greatest sadness of all. Here she was, a strange and tormented girl fallen desperately in love with a man who already had a whole host of beautiful women vying and fighting for his attention. She had seen their fury when she had tried to destroy him, seen their devotion and posessiveness.   
  
Yugi had considered reverting Sakuya, the illusion she had created to weaken him and which he had grown to love, and joining the fray but she quickly discarded that idea. It would not be herself and she would still feel alone and unloved.   
  
There was simply no chance for her, no space in the bevvy of beauties, all of whom were older and more beautiful than herself. Besides she had no real right to claim him nor would even consider it. It was unlikely that Tenchi would appreciate another lovestruck girl in his house and even less likely that his admirers would tolerate it.   
  
Tenchi was handsome, kind and chivalrous but he was also busy, overstressed and claimed at least three times over, each by beautiful, powerful women. There was no room for a strange little girl with a painful past.  
  
Even now she was still alone.   
  
So she walked back to the Masaki home and announced her plan after breakfast, inventing some  
alternate reason behind it and refusing to be swayed by the reasurrances that she was welcome to  
stay with them all. Besides, in a way she would be. She was certain that they would remain in her dreams.  
  
Standing within the Masaki shrine, she was relieved that rather than being dark, it was  
illuminated by a soft green glow. Moving over to the monument in the center, Yugi hesitated   
a moment. Taking one last look at the 'Masaki Family', Tenchi in particular, burning him into   
her memory, She lay in the centre of the shrine, preparing to re-enter a world of dark   
nothingness, this time of her own free will. And this time she would sleep.  
  
Tenchi Masaki looked down at the young, haunting and yet somehow ageless face of Yugi. He  
felt a sadness he couldn't quite express, once again not knowing quite what to do or say.  
  
Yugi looked back and gave him a slight smile tinged with an almost undiscernable trace of   
sadness.   
  
"It's alright." she mouthed to him.   
  
She decided that she could almost believe that.   
  
Almost.  
The End  
  
Notes: Well, what did you think? let me know 'K. I know its kinda been done before and I've only seen the show not the manga so there might be a few probs with the timeline?   
  
Forgive me Ok? This is firse fic.  
  
C&C welcome! (Hint Hint) Please be nice;  
  
Bye  
  
Cheshire Grin 


End file.
